Yorgos Lanthimos needed to relieve stress while filming “poor things” in the sound necklines in Budapest and “types of kindness” in the place of New Orleans.
Then, the author nominated for the Oscar of films as disconcerting and challenging as “dogtooth”, “The Lobster” and “The Favorite” took artistic photography.
“Something click me as I did 'poor things': I was 'ok, why don't I enjoy this?' “The filmmaker said to the Times at the inauguration of his first exhibition of the gallery,” Yorgos Lanthimos: photographs “, in the Webber 939 gallery in the Los Angeles arts district. The show will be there until May 24.
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8:38 am April 7, 2025An earlier version of this article wrote the name of Adali Schell in two photographic credits and erroneously indicated the completion date for the Webber 939 program.
The filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, in the photo on the opening night of an exhibition of his art photography at the Webber 939 gallery in Los Angeles.
(Adali Schell / Mack)
That impulse resulted in developing nights in an improvised stock in the bathroom of his Budapest apartment. Emma Stone, who won an Oscar for her performance in “poor things”, often joined him after prolonged days of work in Origo Studios.
“We learned to process both in white and black and color,” says Lanthimos. “It became our meditation, our relaxation.”
A multitude of art fans and the people of the industry gathered last weekend to see photochemical manufacturing impressions, a single digitalized step was not involved, which aligned the white and red brick walls of the gallery. The predominantly monochromatic photos taken during the production of “kindness” work Stone, the co -star Jesse Plemons and, sometimes, randomly louisianans posing, often, with the face darkened or away from the lens. These works are presented in the book “I We sing these songs wonderfully.”
A black box on the back of the gallery shows rich color pictures and classic black and white portraits of “poor things”, the latter took the outdated path with insertable plates from the HP5 movie of Ilford in a 4×5 wood and carbon chamonix camera. Collected in another art book, “Dear God, the part is still broken”, the photos represent the co -star Margaret Qualley with smear of paint on her face, stone like Bella Baxter in the attire of the Victorian period in the hood Frontons in front of it.
From “Yorgos Lanthimos: Photographs”
(Yorgos Lanthimos / Mack)
From “Yorgos Lanthimos: Photographs”
(Yorgos Lanthimos / Mack)
From “Yorgos Lanthimos: Photographs”
(Yorgos Lanthimos / Mack)
The debris of the set beaten for Baxter's house in that film, a completely designed and specially designed filming environment, is particularly auditory: through the still of Lanthimos lens, it seems that it was beaten by a tornado. Such images can infer that the director is deconstructing his work in one medium with another, but there was nothing so intentional in his mind.
“It was, 'Why don't I see if, with my photograph, I can find something here that is a different perspective from what is happening in the movie?' “Says Lanthimos, who learned basic photography skills at the film school in his native Athens, and took advertising photos for his first Greek features when there was no money for established photographers.
“I also had the privilege of being able to go wherever, in the corners that nobody would be while watching the movie,” he adds. “Everything was a set built in 'poor things.
The photographer took a different tactic during the “kindness” session, moving away his mamiya 7 or 6×7 pentax from the real production locations to capture life, or a discouraged appearance, beyond the scene of the film of the film.
In a large and reddish print, a woman with a white coat is next to a desert road section, looking beyond a grass patch, while the shadow of a utilitarian pole divides her body from the head to her heels.
An image of “Yorgos Lanthimos: photographs”. The work of Lanthimos “does what everything is Great Still Photography does, which suggests a narrative beyond the frame and the subject,” says Mick Mack, who published the images of the filmmaker in the form of a book.
(Yorgos Lanthimos / Mack)
“That image does what all the great photograph does, which suggests a narrative far beyond the frame and the subject,” observes Michael Mack, whose homonymous editorial company in London made the book “Song.” (“Parthenón” is from the Greek editor Void). “This impulse has what makes you ask precisely what it is, what happened, why is it there?
Like films like “The Lobster”, New Orleans de Lanthimos images challenge what you would expect to see the project. He is not about to articulate what we are supposed to do with them.
“I really can't, because it's mainly an exploration,” he says. “How can you see this world in a different way? What else is there to reveal?
“I just enjoyed experiencing,” “Film a scene at night and then look up and see a tree, imagining how it would see if I showed the tree and reveal all the details that I couldn't see with my eye.”
From “Yorgos Lanthimos: Photographs”
(Yorgos Lanthimos / Mack)
Lanthimos also took out his camera while filming the next “Bugonia”, also starring Stone and Plemons. He does not know if they will be part of another book or exhibition, but he is sure that his new creative exit is here to stay.
“You have a freer association,” says Lanthimos about this camera work. “For some reason, we are more indulgent with photography being less narrative, which is something I love.”
A crowd full of Lanthimos Yorgos in a question and answer session on the opening night of his first show of the Los Angeles Gallery.
(Adali Schell / Mack)
